The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to displaying contents of images, and more particularly, to an image viewing method for displaying a portion of a selected image based on a user interaction input and related image viewing system and machine readable medium thereof.
A user may use an image capture apparatus (e.g., a digital camera module of a mobile device) to capture a series of input images. One conventional method may combine multiple input images into one single image, and then display part or all of image contents of the single image to the user. However, the image combination process would lose a lot of original information of the input images. For example, the photometry information (e.g., exposure, luminance and color), the geometry information (e.g., occlusion regions, and geometric deformation due to different viewpoints), and moving objects (e.g. foreground pedestrians and/or vehicles) of certain input images may be lost. Besides, the image combination process may introduce undesired geometric and photometric artifacts. Further, as combining multiple input images into one single image requires complicated computations, the image combination process is time consuming and is not suitable for a mobile device with insufficient computing power.
Thus, there is a need for a novel quick image viewer which is capable of preserving all the information of the input images and introducing no stitching artifact.